Wednesday, 9 May 2012

Moving On Into Moving Image

During the closing months of our degree we have been set the task of creating a short animation, with regular weekly tutorials to help with the progress. I was really excited when I heard about this, I'd enjoyed working on a collaborative animation with Sarah enormously. There is something magical about watching a character that you've created come to life, and now I was to get the chance to learn how bring them to life myself.

Following our initial briefing for the animation project I spent a fair amount of time on Vimeo, staring in wonder at one beautiful animation after another. An early favorite of mine, one that I have played endlessly, is this 'Sherbert Christmas Card' from 2010 by the 'This Is It Collective':

There is so much to love about this video, for a start I love the character designs, which are a fine example of someone creating a range of characters that, although diverse, are all instantly recognizable as belonging to 'the same world' (this is something that I have been advised to work on).

I also love the technique: each model had been painstakingly hand cut and hand painted, a feat even more admirable when you consider that some models look to only have been used for single frames (or at least through my still amateur eyes they do). There are some who would question going to such lengths to create something that could perhaps have been made easier and faster digitally (in a program like Maya maybe). But I would argue that the extra work is totally worth it, the piece has a certain beauty and charm that can only come something that has been crafted by hand, pause the video at any point and you are given a beautifully crafted masterpiece.

Another personal favorite of mine is 'The Man with the Beautiful Eyes', a collaboration between animator Jonathan Hodgson and illustrator Jonny Hannah based on a piece of writing by Charles Bukowski:

Again, there are many reasons why I love this animation, and again a large part of that comes down to the handmade quality of the piece. There is something charming about being able to see the craft behind a piece in the piece itself, by which I'm referring to the variety of textures that are present in the animation: the watercolour paper, the inks the paints. The whole thing looks literally like drawings come to life and as with the previous piece, every frame of he animation could be framed on the wall.